


what fades away

by LonelyLavenderBones



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Can ghosts stalk?, Darkfic, Dubcon is planned, Eventual Smut, F/M, Ghost!Kylo, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Horror, Modern AU, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, Stalking, There Will Be Ghost Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27045211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyLavenderBones/pseuds/LonelyLavenderBones
Summary: A world of shadows lived in the corner of Rey's eye, in the periphery and edges, moving unseen to most people but always there. A fact that she knew all to well.In her new house away from the rest of the world, all Rey wanted was to be left completely and utterly alone. Too bad for that her house had already inhabited by a spirit who had no intentions of letting her do so.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	what fades away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey has a nightmare.

Rey woke in the early hours of morning, the red light of her alarm clock reading 3:31 AM, heralding to her that it was once again limbo hour. Too early to get up and start a pot of coffee and greet the day, and too late to turn on her bedside lamp and flip through her paperback until sleep finally caught up with her.

Rolling onto her side and away from the foreboding glow, she closed her eyes for a moment and tried to urge herself back to sleep. Sometimes that worked, sometimes she just had to start her day at an absurd hour with the false hope that being completely exhausted by the time night rolled around again would ensure that she would sleep soundly through to morning.

That idea was almost laughable at this point, but the thought of, _Well, maybe this time…_ was more reassuring than the opposing thought of, _Well, here we go again._

It had become a reoccurring pattern, waking in the dead of night with restlessness gnawing into her gut only to glance over to see that it was once again 3:31 AM.

 _Don’t think about it_ , Rey urged as she closed her eyes tighter. What _it_ was, she wasn’t quite sure. About the time, about the empty house, about the vastness of space between the other side of her queen size mattress and the open bedroom door.

Why was it that in the shadows of the night, everything seemed emptier, Rey had always wondered?

After all, the house was flooded with shadow in the middle of the night just as it was flooded in light by the time the lunch hour rolled in.

It was as if her body was tuned to the time, softly waking to the mute moans and creaks to the ancient home that she had moved into only weeks ago. The murmurings from dreams, eager whispers at her ears beckoning her to wake to her murky home. For what, she didn’t know.

Rey had chalked it up to being uneasy in a new, unfamiliar place all while living alone. It was just her dreams playing on her anxieties and her subconscious prompting to wake to nothing but darkness and dead air.

When she had lived in the city, she had dreamed that people were knocking on her doors and walls and windows at odd hours of the night. When she had gotten up, baseball bat in hand to check, no one had been there. After all, how could a knock be coming from inside of a wall?

_Just stop, just leave me alone._

_Please, please, please…_

_Go away._

And now, surely, she was caught in her own head and creating the pattern with her own worry that she would wake. Her very own, and very annoying self-fulfilling prophecy.

After all, she had chosen this place because it was so isolated. Between her and the next town were thirty miles of winding farm roads over heavily wooded hills, and a handful of farmers who wanted to be left alone just as badly as she did. She hadn’t come across any of her neighbors, but on her way up, she had seen more than one chained gate helpfully adorned with a sign reading, “KEEP OUT.”

These were the people who were the hearts of the heartland of America. Those who would take out a gun if someone so much rolled on their freshly graveled driveway, and send a warning shot straight into the bumper of some poor soul’s car who was unfortunate enough to get lost in their neck of the woods.

If all that was between her and civilization was a half dozen farmers that wanted nothing more than self-isolation, so be it. Maybe she would adopt a gate and a chain approach herself (minus the shotgun welcome).

_Exiled, Rey._

_You’re not in insolation._

_You’ve exiled yourself._

That thought made her heart start with an electric shock that made everything within her pound, forcing her to sit up and take a deep breath before she was dragged down the familiar path of unwanted memories that were more shuddersome than whatever her imagination could dream up in the shadows.

_Go away._

_Please, please, please…_

Tears pricked at her eyes as she stared at the wall ahead of her as she tried to find a spot to focus on, to ground herself in until the episode passed. The walls were blank, everything still in boxes despite how many weeks had passed since she had rolled her struggling sedan with a rented trailer hitched behind it, up the winding country hills.

Most of them still rested behind her lousy sofa that she had taken from out beside the dumpster of her old apartment. She had opened the one marked ‘dishes’ out of necessity and the one marked ‘books’ for her sanity, but with the possibility of another move always in the back of her mind, she could never convince herself to open the rest.

 _What if, what if, what if,_ was a constant chorus that thudded through her veins. Sometimes so loud that it made her head spin and pushed the air from her lungs, but most of the time it was quiet and forgotten, living in the back of her mind.

It was just like breathing, constant even without her ever having to think about it.

Rey’s eyes found a crack in the wall to keep an eye on, and without hesitation that’s where her focus went. It was long, starting about halfway up the wall, winding up her wall and reminding her vaguely of the Mississippi river.

Her palms, now clammy and covered in a soft sheen of sweat, gripped her comforter as she breathed and forced herself through the panic.

 _M, I, double S, I double S, PP, I…_ she thought, tracing the line in the wall over and over again as she breathed. Not thinking of why she was in that house, just about her breathing and the fact that the crack on her stark white wall looked a little like the muddy Mississippi.

As the thudding chorus began to subside and soften, Rey blinked, thankful for the crack on the wall, and for the empty farmhouse.

A shaky smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she wiped her eyes. If anyone had asked her when she was younger if she enjoyed being alone, she would have laughed. In her younger years, she had wanted nothing more than to be constantly surrounded by people. Not to be the center of attention, just near another person to know that she wasn’t alone. That she wasn’t the only person on a boat in a storm, searching for a tether.

Now, she was untethered, floating in open water, and hoping that a rogue wave wouldn’t come and overtake her.

Because, god help her, being tethered wasn’t an option.

Blinking the rest of her tears away as she looked the Mississippi crack, the moonlight pouring in from her window shifted.

A shadow passed across the wall, gliding gradually before settling right on the crack that she had been peering at so intently just moments before.

Rey stared at the shape, undefined and fuzzy, trying to muster up the courage to turn her head and look out her bedroom window that overlooked the front lawn and long gravel drive that winded down to the poorly paved farm road that was rarely traveled and riddled with potholes.

Maybe one of her neighbors was finally checking her out, driving up in the middle of the night with their lights off and slowly enough that they thought she wouldn’t notice. To see who moved into an abandoned home that had sold for cheap and had a revolving door of owners before an odd twenty-something had decided to make her home there.

After all, no other respectable person would be up in the middle of night, so it was the perfect time to be the voyeur. They hadn’t been informed of her new forced routine of fitfully tossing back and forth through the witching hour, of course.

No, she decided as she took another breath as she stared at the shadow. That would be too weird, even for the “don’t tread on me” types that appeared to live near her.

_Well, just pull off the Band-Aid and just look, Rey._

And, so, she did.

Turning to look out the warped glass of her window, she looked and saw someone standing in the middle of her driveway beside an old oak tree that acted sentinel to the property. The world seemed to start just beyond it, but everything from the house to the tree was hers and hers alone.

It was a small world, but it was hers.

There was no car waiting in the driveway, she noted, and from what she could see, there wasn’t one on idly on the farm road by her mailbox either.

Just the lone figure, tall and dark, standing and shaded from the moonlight beneath the old oak tree.

Maybe a chained gate wasn’t a bad idea if there were drifters wandering the roads at night. The good part of her, the part of her that she was always surprised was still there eager to look at the world without suspicion, wondered if maybe their car had broken down and they had just wandered to the nearest house. 

It wasn’t the most outlandish thing that could happen. Honestly, it was a more likely than a drifter or an odd neighbor peeking in on her.

Her bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor as she stepped closer to the window, peering out and trying to make out the stranger’s features and to possibly decipher what it was they wanted. With the light off, she didn’t worry about them being able to actually see her at the window, peering back at them wearing only a worn tee-shirt riddled with holes and a clean pair of panties.

She could see them, but they couldn’t see her. Not unless they decided to get closer and peer directly into the window.

Frowning, she noted that there was nothing more to this person than their tall silhouette that loomed over the expanse of her lawn and in through the warped glass. All she could tell was that they were probably a man with that height, but anything else could only be guessed. They were too far for her to really get a good look at their face or make out which way they were standing.

No, that wasn’t right. There had to be a logic to that at least.

They had walked onto her property, so surely, they were looking in at her farmhouse and the ruined barn behind it. He might even be peering at the tree line where the woods began where the coyotes howled. Whatever they were looking at didn’t really matter because she was looking at him and waiting for him to do something. Anything that could be a hint to the stranger’s enigma.

 _Well,_ she thought as she continued to watch him. _What do you want?_

To her shock, Rey’s assumption that he had been looking at her home had been wrong.

The stranger glanced over his shoulder towards the house before turning completely around, slowly as if they had heard her. Heard her thought, and just as confused as she was, was turning to face whoever had asked the question.

He had been facing the road, watching the fog roll in off the hills the way it did when the air was sickly thick with humidity, not peering in at her and her property.

It was clear now, but not because he had turned. No, while that had helped make his dark form a bit more obvious, it had been his face, bone white and long, against the dark silhouette staring towards her bedroom window that had assured her that he had not been looking in.

He had been looking out, standing at the imaginary line that she herself placed at the base of that old oak tree, peering out at the road like she did every mid-afternoon as she dared herself to walk out and check the mail in the aluminum box at the mouth of her gravel driveway.

Now, he was facing her and staring at her with eyes darker than the umbra of darkness that engulfed the rest of his towering body so completely.

He could _see_ her.

Taking a hurried step back, she forced herself into the corner and out of the sightline. His face still wasn’t clear, but she knew that no one’s face should be that long and so incredibly pale.

 _Like a corpse_ , she thought numbly as she covered her mouth to stifle a scream that was daring to bubble up. The features still weren’t clear from the distance, but the shape of him was enough to let her know that there was something _wrong_ about him. Long and sallow, and those eyes… Even from the distance, she could see those dark eyes, deep yet searching. She tried to swallow, keeping her hand clamped over her lips.

He continued to stand there, his long face tilting as he looked into her window. He never stepped forward, remaining right on that imaginary line. His expression was hard, and his brow furrowed, as if he were thinking deeply over a question that no one had ever dared to ask before.

 _Go away_ , she prayed, and not for the first time. The scream was daring to rise within her as she realized that the stranger was no ordinary drifter or oddball neighbor or poor lost innocent soul. _Just go away. Make him go away. Go away, go away, go away…_

Part of Rey wanted to be like a little child and desperately close her eyes tightly and wait until they disappeared. She found that the longer she stared at the stranger and they stared back, the more futile that seemed.

It was as if he was staring into her, even as she cowered just beyond the edge of her window, and he was seeing every dark and terrible thing that lived inside her heart. Every secret and everything she had ever hidden, the stranger was gazing over, studying with an icy interest.

A faint buzzing began to rise in her ears as a headache started behind her eyes and along the bridge of her nose. The buzz started soft and low like an ocean of whispers coming into tide. The words meant nothing to her as there were too many whispers, all sounding of the same low voice. As that tide came in, the whispers grew in fervent desperation that only made the pain behind her eyes spread to her forehead, as if someone were knocking on her skull from the inside. Pounding their fist like they were trying to break down a door, in dire need of getting her attention.

Still, she didn’t look away. Couldn’t. As she stared, there was only the stranger and his eyes like dark pits, and there was only her, letting him pour into her with his desperate whispers that were rising into terrified cries and the pain that was head splitting and nearly blinding.

But she never went blind, and never broke the gaze.

“What do you want?” she uttered from behind her pressed fingers as her own voice began to rise into a shriek. The pain was too much, and his screams were shuddering through her, making her entire body shake with every bellow. Bringing her hand away from her mouth, she felt a warm heat running over her knuckles. Her nose was bleeding. Could she scream over him? Could he hear her over his own awful howls? “What do you want?! What do you—”

For a wavering moment, brief and blessed, the noise and the pain paused.

 _To be tethered_ , the stranger finally answered a voice that was so rich and deep that it ran over in a warm flood that started at her head and ended in her toes. It was different type of shudder, almost pleasant, but in its invasiveness, it was frightening all the same.

Rey fell against the wall, her hand grasping for some sort of purchase to steady her just before the voices started again. Sliding down to the floor, she covered her ears just as the voice joined again in one loud chorus just as the pain overwhelmed her and overtook her into unconsciousness.

For that relief, she was grateful.

The sun shined through the warped glass of Rey’s bedroom window, the gentle light of dawn making her wince from beneath the musty comforter she had fallen asleep under the night before. The smell of coffee wafted in the air through her opened bedroom door from the kitchen as the Mr. Coffee bubbled and burped the first automated cup of the day.

With a jerk, Rey shot up from her slumber, glancing around as her heart pounded in her ears. The clock beside her bed read 7:02 AM, and it was programed to go off for another twenty-eight minutes.

There was no head splitting ache and no desperate wails. Just the sound of her own fear, and the memory of a nightmare.

There was nothing but the soft burble of coffee brewing a down the hall and the chitter of birds, no doubt rising early to get their worm.

Bare feet met the chilled hardwood floor as she rushed to the window, expecting to see the stranger standing beside her oak tree and peering back up at her again. He wasn’t there, though. There was nothing but her lawn washed in the light of dawn and the dissipating fog that made the world look like it was glowing beneath a Vaseline filter.

The terror of the dream began to leave her as she listened to the birdsongs and smelt the coffee, all while keeping her eyes on the spot where the stranger had been staring up at her with impossibly black eyes.

She realized why it was that everything seemed so empty in the dark of night. It wasn’t that the house was emptier in the dead in night. No, it was that darkness cloaked the emptiness, obscuring it, and expanding it. 

But the house was just as empty as it was in the dead in night with the soft murmurings of houses resting and the nightmares that chased into the minds of mortals. Dawn just chased away the shadows, forcing them to retreat until the sun lowered at dusk.

And dawn always came, she assured herself, chasing away the fear and the doubt that belonged to the darkness.

In the light of day, it was only Rey in her barren house.

“It’s just me,” she breathed to herself with a relieved laugh as the sun fully crested the field across from her driveway. “Just me, myself, and I... and this dusty old house.”

Rey glanced down at her right hand, and there was a dark streak of dried blood crackled across her knuckles. 

From behind her as she basked in the early morning light, she heard the bedroom door creak in a slow screech before it closed in a heavy thud and with the loud click of its latch.

**Author's Note:**

> ghost? ghost
> 
> boo
> 
> edit: now that this is off anon, follow me on Twitter at xxlonelybones


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